


Paradoxical

by SanguineInk



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Paradox, Temporal Paradox, romance is pretty light
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-10-23 12:25:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17683397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SanguineInk/pseuds/SanguineInk
Summary: The Master survives the Time War, steals the TARDIS, and starts to wreak havoc. And with a paradox hanging over their heads, can two Doctors and one human stop him?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote this in 2010 while I had writer's block on The Planted Past. Cross-posted from Fanfiction.net.

“Hold that button, Rose, just keep pressing it until I fix the computer!” shouted the Doctor over his shoulder as he dashed down the hallway and through an enormous set of double doors. He knew what to do, he could save the whole planet from the Vervian Robots, if only he could just move fast enough….

The massive supercomputer filled half the room. The Doctor pried off one of its panels, exposing the immensely complicated wiring inside. He shrugged off his overcoat and tossed it to the side so it wouldn’t get caught on anything before delving deep into the circuitry. The space was an incredibly tight squeeze, even for this lanky body, but he managed to wedge his shoulders between two of the hard drives and crawl through. The sonic screwdriver buzzed as he fused and spliced different wires, every so often sparing a glance at the just-visible monitor outside, which displayed the security camera’s view of where he had left Rose. She was still holding the button, valiantly keeping the Vervian Robots at bay with the force field, but the force field wouldn’t last much longer. Already the Vervian Robots were beginning to break through. If he could just…

“Oh, this is clever,” muttered the Doctor to himself, puzzling over the mass of tangled wires. He hadn’t thought this planet was capable of this technology. Pushing himself to work even faster, he fiddled with the hard drives, rearranging the code.

“And….there!” Triumphantly, the Doctor turned back to the monitor. The Vervian Robots had frozen, their circuits sizzling, mere metres away from Rose. Another enemy defeated, another planet saved! Oh, he was _brilliant_ ….

Piece of cake, thought the Doctor as he extracted himself from the computer. Piece of pie? Cheese? Banana? Banana cheesecake? Anyway….no more blood on his hands. Now all he needed to do was fetch his coat, meet up with Rose, and pick a new destination before the locals started asking about paperwork. He never had gotten around to taking her to Barcelona….

As he bent down to pick up his coat, his body seized as a volt of electricity surged through his back. With a cry, the Doctor collapsed, unable to control his own violently twitching limbs.

A laughing figure loomed over him. Through the pain, the Doctor dimly recognised the voice, though he’d never heard it before…. _No_ ….

“Can’t believe you fell for that one! You’re getting rusty in your old age.”

“Master?” the Doctor gasped, doubled over in pain.

“Doctor,” the Master acknowledged. With another flick on the laser screwdriver, the Doctor writhed with a fresh scream, his body jerking as if it was having a seizure. “I see you’ve regenerated. But then, we both have. Young and fresh!”

After a moment, the Master turned the screwdriver off. Mostly paralyzed, the Doctor took a deep breath and asked, “You’re alive! How did you survive the Time War?”

“When no one else did, you mean? What, are you upset you didn’t do a thorough enough job?”

“No, I had to—you weren’t there, you don’t know…”

“The Time Lords revived me to help them win the war, guard the Cruciform. They thought I’d be the perfect warrior for a Time War,” the Master sneered, “But I had no intentions of being used, and I hid. I meant to go far, farther than any Time Lord had ever traveled, but I was stranded on this stupid waste of a planet instead. So I stirred up the locals….I know you love solving these little problems. But I’m not going to let you get me to just talk until the paralysis wears off.”

The Master yanked the Doctor’s limp arms behind him and bound them together, jerking on the cord until the Doctor could feel his fingers losing circulation. Once that was finished, the Master snatched a fistful of his hair and forced his eyes to look into his own.

“So tell me then, Doctor….do you have any friends running around? Or,” he dealt a kick to the Doctor’s ribs, causing the Doctor to gasp for air. “Are you alone?”

“I’m alone,” the Doctor lied, grimacing.

Each word was punctuated with another kick. “Where’s—your—TARDIS?”

The Doctor swallowed painfully. “Master, look, it’s different now, we’re the only two left! All we’ve got is each other—”

“You don’t get it, do you?” he yanked harder on the Doctor’s hair, “If they’re all gone, then there’s no one now— no one to undo the paradoxes I create, no one to stop me from subjecting planets and systems—the whole universe! No one to chase me through all of time and space—”

“Doctor?” Rose called distantly. He opened his mouth to shout a warning just as the Master delivered another jolt with his laser screwdriver straight to the Doctor’s throat. Again the Doctor seized, but this time his cries were silent.

“You little liar!” the Master hissed and kicked him in the ribs again, causing the Doctor to give another gasp. “Well,” the Master stage-whispered, a grin slowly spreading over his face, “I’ll bet _she_ knows where your TARDIS is. And here I was planning to take you for a trip. She’ll do.”

The Doctor’s eyes flickered in fear, and he tried desperately to run, to beg, to fight, to shout, to do _anything_. But he couldn’t move, and the Master was untying his tie and plucking up his overcoat and dragging him towards a storage cupboard. The Master dropped him in the dark cramped space, stepped out, and locked the door shut behind him.

Tied, silent, and still mostly paralyzed, the Doctor could only listen as Rose neared the Master.

“Doctor?...Doctor!”

The Master was groaning. “Help me, I’ve—I’ve regenerated….” The Doctor’s hearts skipped a beat. The Master had put on his coat and tie—if Rose believed him, if she took him to the TARDIS….

“Oh! Are you alright? Are you sick? What happened?”

“I don’t know—shot from behind, I’ve only just come to.”

“What happened to the Vervians? Are they going to come back on?”

“Oh, they’re sorted! Roasted them all with the magnoretric ion ray and a dose of tri-gamma radiation.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” The Doctor could picture the look of concern on her face, how she’d bite her lip uncertainly. He tried desperately once more to shout, or at least move to bang on the door, but his throat was utterly useless and his body refused to budge.

“Yeah, yeah, just my head….I was hit in the head I think, my memory’s all fuzzy….”

“Well, what do you remember then?”

“Well…I’m the Doctor. And I need to find my TARDIS. And you are….” He paused, pretending to remember. The real Doctor twitched his fingers as some feeling returned to them. C’mon, if he could just bang on the door or _something_ …

“I’m Rose.” She sounded immensely disappointed.

“Rose,” the Master lingered on the name, “Rose, Rose, wonderful Rose….How could I forget? Now do you know where we parked the TARDIS?”

“Just over….hold on.”

There was a brief pause. “And what do you need a stethoscope for?” Rose must have found the stethoscope in his coat pocket.

“Just a minute, I have to check….” _Oh Rose, fantastic Rose, that was brilliant, but it wouldn’t work…._

“Oh, right. Good thinking.” The Master chuckled. “Anyone could just walk up and claim they were me.”

There was a pause while Rose listened to the Master’s heartbeats. The Doctor tried yelling again, but not a single sound escaped him. His fingers wriggled at their bonds, still useless for banging on the door.

“Two,” ascertained Rose, “Sorry, just had to check, you know.”

“Perfectly alright. You smart little girl. Now where is the TARDIS?”

“Over by those vending machines with the funny green drinks, remember?”

The Doctor silently, pointlessly, desperately screamed as he heard Rose leading the Master away.

Over the next few minutes, as he regained feeling in his limbs, the Doctor struggled and thrashed until he had freed his feet and began kicking the door frantically and yelling. He had to get out now, before the Master took off with his TARDIS and Rose. Who knew what havoc the Master would wreak with the TARDIS…but the Doctor was certain he’d abandon Rose somewhere first.

Hope, the Doctor believed, was a brilliant emotion. But after five solid minutes of kicking, hopelessness began to creep into his exhausted limbs. Eight minutes and twenty-seven seconds had passed. The Master was long gone by now. Even if the Doctor managed to get free, he had no way of catching the Master if he’d transported to some other place or time. He was stuck here…and Rose was stuck who knew where.

With one last desperate kick, the Doctor finally gave up. The TARDIS was gone, and Rose was probably abandoned on some barely habitable planet in some remote time, if not worse.

The door opened, and the Doctor winced as the light hit his eyes.

“Fantastic! I found you!” exclaimed an all-too familiar voice with a Northern accent.

“What?” cried the Doctor, gawking. “WHAT?!”

The Ninth Doctor stowed his small beeping device in his leather jacket and extracted the sonic screwdriver. “Have you out in a mo. Can’t believe I finally found another Time Lord! How did you survive? I was so sure I was the only one left—never been happier to be wrong! Doesn’t happen that often, you know….Mind telling me why you’re staring?”

The Tenth Doctor, although no longer tied up, hadn’t budged. “What are you doing here? I don’t remember this!”

“What am _I_ doing here? Trying to track down any other Time Lord in all of time and space. What are _you_ doing tied up in a cupboard?” He frowned. “Hold on….Oh, no…”

“Oh yes!” Ten exclaimed, a grin creeping onto his face. “I’ll explain on the way to your TARDIS.”

“This way,” Nine helped Ten to his feet. “Which one are you then?” he asked as they ran down the hallway.

“Tenth.”

“You’re saying _I’m_ the one who turns into….into—”

“A dashing bloke with, to borrow your word, _fantastic_ hair?”

“A pretty boy,” Nine finished.

“Oi, who you calling pretty boy? At least I’ve got hair! _And_ normal ears!” He stretched his ears out for emphasis.

Nine scowled. “Where’s _your_ TARDIS then? Why are we using mine?”

“You haven’t been following me all over the universe; you’ve been following the Master.”

“He’s back?” said Nine in disgust. “Of all the Time Lords in the universe—”

“And he took the TARDIS and Rose.”

“Rose? We have a companion? After all the horrible things we did, you dragged her into this?”

“No, you did,” Ten retorted. “Apparently you haven’t met her yet. Where are you anyway? What have you been doing?”

“Let’s see….Went to Galatea—bit slimy, but nice people. Long as they don’t catch you cheating at cards….oh, I met Emmeline Pankherst. Stole my laser spanner—the _nerve_ of some people, can you believe.…Then I was going to go off to 35th century Mars when the TARDIS detected another Time Lord, so I started tracking him.”

They rounded a corner and froze in their tracks as they came face-to-face with one of the tall, green, and freckled inhabitants Ten had just saved. “Doctor, so glad I found you!” cried the alien, hoisting up a heavy load of paperwork in his tentacles.

“So sorry, must dash!” Ten flew past him in a blur, scattering a few of the papers in his wake.

The alien held out the stack of paperwork to Nine hopefully.

“Fill those out for me, will you? Thanks.” Within seconds, Nine had caught up with Ten.

“Mars?” huffed Ten as both Doctors pounded down the hallway, “That’s wrong. After Emmeline I was headed to Shuria to replace the spanner, but then the Auton invasion popped up and I went to go sort it. That’s where I met Rose.”

“So I’ll be meeting her soon, then?”

Arriving at Nine’s TARDIS, Ten pushed his way past Nine into the console room and immediately started pushing buttons. “Hopefully, you can meet her right now. Hold on, locking onto my TARDIS…”


	2. Chapter 2

Once inside the vortex, the Master dumped the Doctor’s overcoat on the floor and stalked off to the wardrobe, leaving Rose in the console room to think.

She sat in the captain’s chair while she waited for him to return, clutching the Doctor’s coat in her trembling fingers. The Doctor had died. Again. Not really, she reminded herself, he’d just…changed again. And she hadn’t even seen it this time. And neither, apparently, had he. Just another reminder of how dangerous their lives were. It made her miss her mum. She stood and tossed the coat over one of the coral struts, like the Doctor used to do. It was really the only to say goodbye to someone who wasn’t really gone at all.

She was being thick. The Doctor was still the Doctor, just a bit different. Maybe he’d like her mum this time, or prefer lounging on beaches to running down labyrinthine hallways with angry mobs on their heels.

“Are you really going to wear that?” She choked on her own laughter. The Master had returned to the console room dressed in a black suit with a long billowing cloak with a high collar draped over his shoulders.

“What, you’re into capes now?” Her tongue stuck out.  “Bit grand, innit?”

“Too grand? For the grandest creature in the universe? Hardly!” sniffed the Time Lord. He flicked switches and pulled levers, but the TARDIS groaned deeply.

“She alright? She’s never sounded like that before,” remarked Rose, forehead creasing in concern.

“C’mon, c’mon….” the imposter muttered, flicking one last switch. Still protesting, the TARDIS began to dematerialise. “You _will_ do as you’re told,” he insisted, harshly yanking one more lever.

“Are you sure you’re fine?” asked Rose nervously. The TARDIS sounded as if it was in pain. “You’re acting a bit…”

“What, not like me? Part of the regeneration process. New me, remember?”

“New new new Doctor,” Rose said softly.

“Yes, I suppose so,” he said, frowning as he inspected the console screen. He’d barely even glanced at her since returning to the TARDIS.

“So, where are we going?” she asked, trying to mask her disappointment. So maybe the Doctor was even less like himself than he had been after the first change, when he went from leather to pinstripes. This was him now, Rose said to herself. Same person…just different. She’d vowed last Christmas that she would always like him, no matter what face he wore. She tried not to miss him and his geeky glasses and his amazing hair and silly little rambles…

“Lovely little asteroid called Freshel-ck-ck-quell,” clicked the Master brightly, “Has barely enough oxygen to breathe, averages about 2 degrees Celsius….oh, and it’s populated by flesh-eating insects. Giant ones, with pincers!” He pinched his fingers together in an imitation of pincers, childish glee lighting up his face.

Rose wrinkled her nose in disgust. “What are we going there for?” Before he could answer, they were both thrown to the ground as the TARDIS rematerialised, shuddering violently.

“This is your stop!” the Master said, beaming and taking her by the elbow. “Out you go!”

Rose yanked her arm from his grip. “Well, there’s another thing that’s changed—you’ve got a horrible sense of humour now. That’s not funny.”

“It’s not meant to be,” he said menacingly, advancing towards her. Rose took a step backward.

“Doctor, take me home. This isn’t like you, something’s wrong with you, take me home _now_!” she demanded, trying to hide her fear.

The Master snatched her arm in a vise-like grip and dragged her towards the front door. “Sorry, I’m dumping you off here. Be grateful I don’t have my tissue compression eliminator. Rassilon, I miss that thing. Hope you like your new neighbors—”

The door to the TARDIS burst open. Rose barely had time to register what was happening before she was wrenched from the Master’s grip and into the arms of a familiar pinstriped figure. He quickly yanked her behind the console and started pushing buttons in a frenzy. On the other side of the console, the man who had tried to abandon her was in a fistfight with…

“Doctor?” Rose whispered.

“ _And_ ….now!” yelled the pinstriped Doctor, slamming his fist down on one more button. The Doctor in the leather jacket—Rose’s first Doctor—rolled away from the “newest” Doctor, as a green force field encased the latter. Trapped in the force field, the Master beat furiously and soundlessly on the green wall.

“Rose!” She stiffened as the pinstriped panic-stricken Doctor gripped her shoulders, “Are you alright? Did he hurt you?”

Rose stared over his shoulder at her first Doctor as he got to his feet, groaning and rubbing his head tenderly.

“Rose?” the pinstriped Doctor gazed at her anxiously.

Rose’s eyes snapped back to his brown ones. “You tried to leave me!” she shrieked angrily, “You tried to leave me on some comet with insects with pincers and…” She contemplated whether a punch to the jaw or a kick to the crotch would be more appropriate.

“No, Rose, that’s not me. I’d never leave you. I—”

“Is _that_ why I turn out so pretty?” interrupted the younger Doctor from the other side of the console. Without another glance at the pinstriped Doctor, Rose ran to the other Doctor and threw her arms around him.

“Doctor!” she breathed, “Oh my gosh, it’s _you_.”

Arms pinned to his sides, Nine stiffened and looked over Rose’s head at his future self, who wore an expression not unlike a brutally kicked puppy.

“Er, yes, that’s me. Hello.” He gently freed his arms and pushed her off him.

“Rose,” Ten called softly, “He…hasn’t met you yet.”

Immediately Rose backed away from the younger Doctor, eyes widening. “I’m so sorry—hold on, am I going to disappear or something? Are Reapers going to appear on the TARDIS?”

“You met Reapers?” said Nine, frowning.

“Long story, you’ll find out later.” Ten waved a hand dismissively. “No Reapers, Rose, Time Lords are a bit different. Anyway—”

“How are there three of you?” Rose demanded, addressing the current Doctor.

“Two, actually,” said Nine pointedly.

“Yep,” said Ten, popping the ‘p.’ “There’s Big Ears over there, and dashing old me over here, and the one contained in this lovely gravitational containment field over there is the Master.”

“Master of what?” asked Rose, scrutinizing the figure in the force field, who was still silently yelling and pounding on the walls.

“What do you mean, ‘Master of what?’ ” said Ten incredulously, “Rose, what am I the Doctor of?”

Rose paused for a moment. “Oh.” She turned her head from one Doctor to the other. “How are there two of you, then? Can you, I dunno, touch each other without the universe exploding?”

“Sure!” grinned Nine, moving over to Ten. “Watch.” He brought his arm up, delivering a powerful smack to the back of Ten’s head.

“Ow!” whined Ten, hand moving instinctively to his head. “What was that for?”

“For not being ginger!” Nine fired back.

Ten nodded with a wince, still rubbing his head. “Fair enough.”

“Okay. But then what am I supposed to call you?” laughed Rose, “Doctor One and Doctor Two?”

“Only if I’m number one,” both Doctors said simultaneously. Both glared at each other.

“Nine and Ten will do, I suppose,” said Ten thoughtfully.

“Why Nine and Ten?” asked Rose.

“Cause I’m the ninth incarnation, and _he’s_ the tenth,” said Nine, jabbing a finger in Ten’s direction.

“You mean you’ve died ten times?” Rose voice raised incredulously.

“Only nine!” said Ten defensively, “I was born with a body, died nine times, bringing the total to ten bodies. What, you thought I looked like _him_ for 900 whole years?”

“Nine hundred?” snorted Nine. “You’ve been telling her you’re only 900 years old? Are we going through a second midlife crisis? What else have you been telling her?”

“ _Well_ …..I was getting to it! It’s not like you told her much either! Plus, it’s not the kind of thing you go round spilling your guts about to everyone, is it? Telling our life story could take years—decades, even!—and I decided to not waste Rose’s short, precious life blabbing about every little detail of my long long time in the universe. Not to mention—”

“Am I always this chatty?” interrupted Nine.

Rose bit back a smile. “Yeah. You’ve sort of got a gob….He’s right though—you didn’t even tell me about regeneration until after it happened. Or was that you?” She turned back to Ten. “ _You_ told me you were the same person. The exact same person—”

“I am! I am him, in his future. He is me, in my past. I’ve crossed my own timeline, that’s all.” Ten shrugged. “Insanely dangerous, but doable. Especially for someone as brilliant as me.”

“Then why don’t you get along if you’re the same person?”

“Well, we don’t usually,” said Nine, crossing his arms and glaring at Ten, “Had four of myself in a room once. _That_ was a bit confusing. Not to mention one of me didn’t even bother to show up….”

“Do you think you would get along with a four-year-old Rose?” asked Ten, hands in his pockets now, “Or would the four-year-old Rose just bug you for chips until you were ready to chuck her off a building?”

“We’re comparing me to a four-year-old ape, now?” asked Nine sarcastically. “Oh, that’s nice.”

“Right…So who’s he then, again, the Master?” Rose asked, returning her attention to the figure, who had stopped pounding on the force field and was now sitting cross-legged with his back to them. “He had two heartbeats, I checked.”

“He’s a Time Lord,” explained Ten grimly. “Those are Gallifreyan robes he’s wearing.”

“Thought they were all gone?”

“That’s what I thought,” sighed Nine.

“And me. Question is,” Ten said, putting his glasses on to inspect the Time Lord on the other side of the force field, “What do we do with him now?”

“I’ll tell you what we’re not going to do,” declared Nine, “We’re not killing him and we’re not letting him loose on the universe.”

“Agreed,” said Ten, brow wrinkling in thought.

Rose raised her eyebrows. “First time you two’ve agreed on anything.”

“I already tried to make friends with him,” said Ten with a frown, “His response was to lock me in a cupboard, steal the TARDIS, and kidnap Rose.”

“Right. So we imprison him somewhere,” decided Nine.

“Somewhere with no technology, and no civilizations to topple,” suggested Ten, mulling over planets in his mind.

“Muertagarde Three?” offered Nine.

Ten shook his head. “Too rich in minerals close to the surface. Given enough time, he could build something to get him off-planet, and the Steno civilization’s developing right next door, so that’s out. Pre-classical Jeno?”

“Before the invention of the yurt tractor? The food’s only edible for the Jenians, he’d starve. Or eat the Jenians. Earth, preJurassic period?”

“Now there’s an idea!” said Ten, removing his glasses excitedly. “Although,” he mused, “Do we really want him on Earth?”

“No,” admitted Nine. “I wouldn’t let him anywhere near it.”

“You know,” mused Ten, “We _could_ always just keep him on the TARDIS. Mine, not yours, because if he was on yours, he would already be on mine, and he’s not. I’m pretty sure he isn’t anyway….Well, I mean, he’s here in the force field, right now, but I wouldn’t keep him in the console room; it’s far too distracting…”

“Well, you can’t just keep him locked up forever,” Rose pointed out. “He’s a Time Lord like you, yeah? So he’s clever. Eventually he might escape.”

“Like this you mean?” a voice broke in from behind her. All three whirled to face him. The gravitational containment field had vanished, revealing a very smug Master, twirling his laser screwdriver in his fingers. Both Doctors whipped out their sonic screwdrivers and pointed it at the Master threateningly.

“The human’s right, _Doctors_ ,” said the Master, tossing his laser screwdriver in the air and catching it one-handedly. “I’m far too clever. Oh, put those away, why don’t you? We all know those won’t do anything. Now _this_ on the other hand….” Springing into action, he aimed the laser screwdriver at Rose and fired.

Ten lurched towards her but Nine, who was closest to Rose, was faster, bodily knocking her out of the way just in time for the volt of electricity to strike him instead. With a horrible grunt of pain, he crumpled to the ground as the Master bolted out the TARDIS door. Ten dashed after him, but the Master had already barricaded himself inside Nine’s TARDIS parked just outside.

As Nine’s TARDIS dematerialised, Ten dashed back into his own TARDIS only to see Rose reaching for the still-writhing Nine. “DON’T TOUCH HIM!” Ten bellowed. He pulled her gently away. “He knew what he was doing—that’s enough electricity to kill a human. Give him a moment. And hold this, will you?”

Rose held the wires Ten handed her, glancing worriedly over at Nine, who now lay unnaturally still on the floor.

“Doctor, are you sure he’s alright?”

“He’s fine, or I wouldn’t be here,” said Ten consolingly from under the console. “I told you, that was enough electricity to kill a human, and it’s not exactly good for Time Lords either. Just give him two more minutes…” Rose’s focus switched between Nine, who remained motionless on the floor, and Ten as he fused wires together with his screwdriver.

“What did he do that for?” asked Rose, “He doesn’t even know me.”

“Yeah, but he knows he will. He’s still fresh from the Time War….” He paused. “I was so lonely then, Rose.”

“Are you still?” she asked softly.

“Well, yeah….but not nearly as much.” His voice brightened. “I’ve got you now.”

“Is this why you went back for me? Because you remembered this? That’s a paradox, isn’t it, only being my friend because you knew I was already your friend….”

“I went back for you because you were fantastic, Rose. Still are. I don’t even remember all this. I mean, most of the time I forget about meeting myself, but I remember it after the later regeneration experiences it. But I’m not remembering anything now.”

Nine stirred, groaning as he opened his eyes. “Rose, are you alright? Where is he?”

“I’m fine, thanks to you,” Rose smiled warmly, offering her hand to pull him up. Their eyes met and he stared at her, not letting go of her hand even after he was standing.

Ten peeked out from under the console. “Right, the Master sort of…nicked your TARDIS. Sorry.”

“Sorry?” said Nine angrily, finally breaking eye contact, “Are you going senile? That’s _twice_ you’ve let him nick the TARDIS now.”

“ _You_ were the one who parked it just outside and didn’t lock the door! Anyway, I tried tracking it the same way we tracked mine, but he’s figured out how we did it and reprogrammed your TARDIS. I’m trying to rig up a omni-point channel so we can at least pinpoint where and when he went.”

“Fantastic, now budge over. We won’t both fit down there.” Without waiting for his future self to respond, Nine seized Ten by the Converse-clad foot, yanked him out from under the console, and crawled under himself.

“Do you mind?” said Ten indignantly. Rose stifled a smile.

“Just checking to make sure you haven’t mixed up the wires….and look at that! You didn’t hook the phrato conduit up to the quadrafusion driver!”

“That’s because I hooked it to the kelodampener latch instead, which will create an expedited homing feedback loop which should lock onto your TARDIS’ current temporal-spatial coordinates. Not as accurate as the method we used before, but doable, and a lot narrower a time window than a typical quadral loop, I’m sure you’ll agree.”

“But that’s….that’s….!” stammered Nine, as he emerged from beneath the console. “Brilliant!”

“Course it is! I’m the Doctor, or have you forgotten?”

“Wish I could,” said Nine wistfully. As he emerged from underneath the console, Ten pushed several more buttons, activating the homing device.

“Here we are!” announced Ten. All three gathered around the monitor, although Rose couldn’t read the Gallifreyan symbols. “Ardonia, Ardonian year Arthos-1984.”

“What’s there, then?” asked Rose as both Doctors dashed around the console.

“You’re from Earth, right? Planet of the apes?” said Nine, twisting a lever. “It’s a lot like Earth.”

“Arthos-1984’s about a thousand years in your past, Rose,” added Ten, knocking Nine’s hand out of the way to press a button. “Medieval ages, ha! Anyway, the Ardonians don’t look too different from Time Lords. Or humans. We’ll blend in just fine...so will the Master.”

“Arthos-1984…what month?” asked Nine.

“Looks like Blandook,” announced Ten, scrutinizing the screen, Right in the middle of Great Sky War III.”

“Master in the middle of a war of great historical importance, not to mention a fixed point in time? Fantastic.”

“Well, how long’s he been there?” asked Rose.

“Well, this expedited quadral loop isn’t the same thing we used before. That pinpointed where and when you were down to within twenty feet and two minutes. This only works for about, oh—”

“Ten miles and six months,” Nine interrupted.

“So he could have been here six months?” cried Rose.

“Six months, thirty seconds, no way of telling!” said Ten cheerfully as the TARDIS landed with a bump. “Shall we go?”

Ten shrugged his coat back on and started for the door, extending a hand towards Rose. She took it automatically, then paused for a brief moment to glance at Nine, who was studying their entwined fingers intently. She caught his eye, smiled, and reached out her other hand, wiggling her fingers expectantly. Ten glanced back in time to see Nine taking Rose’s free hand.

Sandwiched between them, Rose grinned. “C’mon, let’s go.”


	3. Chapter 3

They only needed to step from the TARDIS to find the Master. His face smiled omnisciently at them from an enormous poster tacked to the decrepit brick wall of the alley a few metres away. _The Master is Watching You_ was printed underneath his picture.

“Oh, you’ve _got_ to be kidding me,” groaned Nine as they neared the poster.

“That is…ridiculous,” commented Ten, “Beyond ridiculous. And very bad, I’m afraid.”

“And the year…” added Nine. “That’s not just a coincidence.”

“No, definitely not…Rose, have you ever read _1984_?”

“Oh, I think we read that in school….what was it about again? The future, Big Brother, wasn’t it? Hold on, didn’t you say this was—”

“The year Arthos-1984. He always did have a flair for the dramatic, the Master.”

“ ‘The Master is watching you…’ ” Nine pondered. “Question is, is he watching us right now?”

Relinquishing Rose’s hand, Ten ran his sonic screwdriver over the poster. “Ooh, he is. Camera’s embedded in the poster. Rose, get back to the TARDIS before—”

“Freeze!” Ten suddenly found a large blaster centimetres from his nose. The man wielding it was quickly followed by another four men, who aimed their weapons at Nine and Rose.

“Right, right, we’re frozen,” blabbered Ten, raising his hands, one of which was still holding the sonic, in the air. “No need to point weapons at us, we’re perfectly harmless…could you tell us who’s on the poster, here? And when did he arrive?”

“Silence in the name of Terraheg!” barked the officer. “You are under arrest.”

“What for?” demanded Nine.

“For being out past curfew. Civilian males are not allowed out on the streets on Fronsdays.”

“Really? But I was so sure it was Vlonkishday—” Ten’s mouth shut as the gun was pressed even closer to his head, the barrel just touching his temple.

“Silence!” the officer repeated. “Arrest them.”

One of the men behind him reholstered his gun and moved to cuff them.

“Hold on,” said Ten in protest as the soldier roughly yanked Rose’s arms behind her back, “You said civilian _males_ , what are you arresting her for?”

“Aiding and abetting criminals,” snarled the officer, whacking Ten’s head with the barrel of his gun.

“They look like spies from Posnia!” piped the youngest soldier.

“No, we’re definitely Terrahegans,” insisted Nine, “I have some identification—”

“Probably faked,” scoffed the officer.

“No, listen, it’s okay, we just—” Rose started. One of the soldiers snatched a fistful of her hair and yanked her head back, and she winced. Ten opened his mouth in anger, but the officer smacked his head with his gun again. The officer nodded curtly to the guard, who promptly released Rose’s head and moved on to Nine.

“Look, she wasn’t helping us; we kidnapped her!” Nine insisted as his arms, too, were cuffed, “She hasn’t done anything, let her go.”

“Look, gents, I’m sorry, I really am,” said the officer, sounding genuinely apologetic, “But the thing is, she’ll help me fill my quota. Take it up with Master Saxon if it bothers you that much.” Satisfied that both Doctors and Rose were properly bound, the officer nodded to his men, and they marched their three prisoners at gunpoint past the poster and down the street.

* * *

“Well, here’s another prison to add to my list,” said Rose cheerfully two minutes after being locked up in the cement cell. She sat with her wrists chained to the wall above her head. Across from her stood the entrance, a solid steel door. The walls to her right and left each held a Doctor, chained in a similar position. Aside from this, the only adornment in the narrow room was a pale, pathetic light fixed into the high, paneled ceiling.

“You’ve been keeping a list?” said Ten indignantly, still squirming in vain to free his wrists from the chains.

“Yep,” said Rose, popping her ‘p’ in an imitation of Ten. “This is my 53rd prison. Some of those might be repeated—I’m only counting one prison per planet.”

Nine interrupted them with a grunt of pain, but his face broke into a grin as he wiggled the fingers on his now-free hand. His thumb bent at an odd angle. “Double-jointed,” he said triumphantly, “Sort of….Are _you_ double-jointed?”

“No,” said Ten, bored, as Nine fished inside his leather jacket for the sonic screwdriver. “And you’re not either, _Doctor_. Dislocating your thumb to show off, now that’s intelligent….”

“Just because I didn’t manage to lose the sonic screwdriver,” Nine unlocked his other wrist and pressed the bones in his thumb gingerly back into place with a grimace before moving to free Rose. “You seem to have a disturbing habit of losing things.”

“I didn’t _lose_ the screwdriver, it was _stolen_ when we were arrested, if you’ll remember. And what else did I lose?”

“The TARDIS,” answered Rose and Nine simultaneously as her chains snapped open. Rose massaged her wrists as Nine moved towards his counterpart.

“Again, not lost, _stolen_. We’ll get it back.” Ten sprang up the second his chains were off, snatching the screwdriver before Nine could react and dashing towards the door. His burst of energy faded as the door refused to open. “Dead-lock sealed,” he sighed in disappointment. “Why did they have to use a dead-lock seal?”

“Can’t you just, I dunno, resonate the concrete or sommat?” asked Rose.

“Oh, that’s a fantastic idea!” said Nine appreciatively, stealing the screwdriver back from Ten and beginning in earnest. “Where’d you come up with that?”

“You, actually,” Rose admitted, “You did it once, while we were trapped by gas-mask zombies during the Blitz.”

Nine stopped his resonating to stare at her. “What?”

“Spoilers, Rose, spoilers!” Ten scolded.

A moment passed as Rose and Ten watched Nine resume resonating the concrete in silence.

“This is going to take awhile, isn’t it?” said Rose, sitting and leaning against the wall, hugging her knees up to her chest.

“Well…” said Ten, “Yeah. You should probably sleep, you haven’t slept in, what, two planets?”

“Three,” said Rose, “I slept right before that planet with the icicles…..what was that called again?”

“Grexslaxia,” said Ten, shrugging off his long overcoat and plopping beside her. He wrapped the coat around her as she leaned against him appreciatively. “And that was twenty-one hours and two _brilliantly_ saved civilizations ago. Sleep.”

“Not tired,” Rose protested, but wrapped in his coat and soothed by the double heartbeat she heard with the ear pressed to his chest, she was soon sleeping.

Minutes passed with no sound but Rose’s not-quite snoring and the sonic screwdriver’s humming as Nine continued resonating the concrete, scowling as he worked.

Finally bored with the silence, Ten commented, “You know it’ll take days before you can resonate it enough to actually make it through that concrete.”

“Well it’s better than sitting there acting as a Time Lord pillow,” Nine snapped back.

“And what have you got against pillows?”

Nine flicked off the screwdriver and whirled to face him. “Look at you! Since when are we so…. _domestic_?”

“Domestic?! _Domestic_?!” Ten’s pitch increased exponentially. Rose stirred, and both of them immediately quieted. “I’m not domestic,” he insisted.

“Looks like it to me.”

Ten paused, considering. So maybe he’d let her keep pet pretty boys. So maybe he took Rose to visit her mother once in a while. So maybe he’d let her drag him shopping on a plethora of planets. So maybe he was currently serving as her personal pillow.

“Alright,” Ten relented, “So maybe I am, a little bit. But domestic with Rose—not so bad.”

They both sat there in an increasingly awkward silence. Nine turned his back on Ten and resumed his resonating.

An hour later, Nine finally threw down the screwdriver in frustration. “This is never going to work! Stupid thing isn’t fast enough!”

“Oi, don’t break it! Temper, temper….”

“What, have you got any ideas, pretty boy?!”

“Actually, I just might have,” said Ten sagely. “Been sitting here for awhile, you know, being a pillow, doing my pillow thing, and staring at the only thing more boring than you resonating concrete—the ceiling. And the thing is, _that_ ,” he jerked his head upward to point at the lightbulb in the high ceiling, “Most certainly shouldn’t look like that. Look at how it’s attached.”

Nine glanced up and squinted in the dim light. “It’s not a welded light….” His eyes widened in realization.

“Brilliant, you are. Any thoughts? Ideas? Opinions? Suggestions? Notions? Inklings? Viewpoints? Theories? They say talking to yourself’s the first sign of insanity, but I’m willing to take the risk.”

Nine considered. “If it’s not welded, that indicates there is another room or space of some sort directly above us.”

“Ooh, could be a ventilation shaft. Bit cliché, isn’t it, eh? Ventilation shaft?”

“Cliché works for me if it gets us out of here. Quit pillow duty and come over. I’ll give you a boost.”

“I’m perfectly capable of giving _you_ a boost, you know,” said Ten as he delicately slid out from under Rose, laying her gently on the ground with her cheek resting on her arm.

Nine snorted. “Right. You, lift me. What, were we sucked dry by Brawnavores or something?”

“Absorbing the Time Vortex out of Rose before it burned her up, actually.”

Nine glanced back at the sleeping blonde with worry. “How’d it get in there in the first place?”

Ten shrugged nonchalantly. “Oh, you know…..long story. Involves reality television gone wrong, an idiot with a truck, and a big, bad wolf.”

Nine waited for more, but his older counterpart said nothing. “Right. No more spoilers than that?”

“Well, based on my own memories, _you_ aren’t going to remember any of this, so there’s no harm. It’s just, if I tell you, you’ll be even more sulky than usual, and we just don’t have time. Now lift, Doctor Impressive.”

Ten hoisted himself onto the kneeling Nine’s shoulders and they both stood, wobbling slightly as they found equilibrium. Nine passed the screwdriver to Ten, who fiddled with it before aiming it at the base of the light. He put the screwdriver between his teeth, probed the area around the light with the tips of his fingers, then pushed. A piece of the ceiling popped up. Stretching to be just a bit taller, he slid it to the side and took the screwdriver from his mouth. “Boost me up a bit higher, would you?”

With a bit more effort, Nine obliged, almost standing tip-toe. Replacing the screwdriver in his teeth, Ten curled the tips of his fingers around the edge of the hole in the ceiling. Straining to grip the ceiling, he pulled himself off Nine’s shoulders. Nine wrapped his fingers around Ten’s trainers and hoisted him up even further until he could crawl into the space above.

“Ha, I was right!” said Ten, popping his head out the hole to look back down at Nine. “It _is_ a ventilation shaft! And tell you what—looks like it leads somewhere! Shall we wake Rose and follow it before someone inevitably comes to fetch us?”

“Good idea. Pass me the screwdriver.”

Ten tossed it down. “What for?”

“I don’t trust you with it. You lost yours.” Nine pocketed it, grinning mockingly.

Ten rolled his eyes. “Just wake Rose up.”

Nine stooped down by Rose and nudged her shoulder as if afraid she might shatter. “Rose,” he murmured softly.

Her eyes opened instantly and stared at Nine in shock for a moment. Then, she seemed to remember where they were. Nine pulled her up as she yawned, still wrapped tightly in Ten’s coat.

“Wake-y, wake-y, Rose Tyler!” beamed Ten happily from the ceiling and waved. “Fancy a jaunt through this lovely ventilation shaft?”

She grinned sleepily. “Alright. Want your coat back?”

“Actually, yes.” Rose shrugged it off, and tossed it up. Ten caught it deftly, and laid it next to him before leaning almost half his body out the hole.

“Right, then, up you come!” he reached out a hand. With a boost from Nine, Rose caught his hand. The older Doctor gripped her firmly by the wrist and pulled her up into the shaft.

“Now you, grab this,” Ten passed the coat to Rose, who dangled it as far down as she could. Nine bunched it up in his fist and started to climb. Ten reached around Rose and they both heaved him up further, until finally all three were squeezed in the tight shaft. Ten squirmed his way back into his coat while Nine resealed the ceiling behind them with the sonic screwdriver.

“Onwards and upwards!” Ten declared. Rose followed him with another yawn.

Nine crawled after both of them, trying very hard not to stare at what was directly in front of him. Oh, he _hated_ ventilation shafts….


	4. Chapter 4

They crawled through the claustrophobic ventilation shaft, Ten leading the way, followed by Rose, then Nine. After a few minutes of wandering, Rose finally asked, “Do you know where you’re going?”

“Of course I do!” scoffed Ten, “Brilliant navigator, that’s me.”

“Only, it’s getting kind of hot…”

Rose was right—the metal of the shaft was slowly heating under their palms. The air, already stuffy from their bodies being so close together, passed thickly through their lungs.

“Someone’s turning the heat on,” muttered Nine.

Crawling faster, they arrived at a fork.

“Left, right, or straight?” mused Ten aloud. “Feels like the TARDIS is left….”

“No, it’s right!” called Nine from behind Rose.

“I think I know where my own TARDIS is!” said Ten angrily. The shaft was baking, and even the Doctors were sweating.

“Yeah, except it’s not _your_ TARDIS anymore. It’s _mine_ , and it’s to the right!”

“Will both of you just shut it?” hissed Rose, struggling to breathe in the overwhelming heat, “Seeing as you _both_ can’t navigate to save your lives, I say we go straight.”

They went straight, crawling until Rose was positive her back would never stand straight again.

Just when she was sure she was going to pass out, Ten stopped. “Alright, I think there’s a vent here. No sign of the TARDIS, but I don’t think we can stay up here much longer.”

Nine slid the screwdriver past Rose, and Ten opened a vent in the floor of the shaft. Cool air rushed to greet them, and they gasped huge grateful gulps.

Screwdriver in his teeth, Ten dropped from the vent onto the floor. He gazed around quickly. They’d landed in a small room, filled with an eerily familiar supercomputer and…..

“Sensors in the floor, hold on!” he said, rushing to sonic the sensor embedded at the base of the wall, but Rose was already in mid-drop from the vent. She landed clumsily, gasping for air. Nine nimbly swung down beside her, and reached out a hand to steady her.

“What kind of sensors?” demanded Nine.

The screwdriver’s buzzing ceased as Ten straightened. “The summoning-big-nasty-people-with-guns kind.”

As if on cue, the far door opened, revealing several burly Terrahegans holding guns that would make Jack Harkness envious.

“Run!” yelled both Doctors in unison, Ten snatching Rose’s hand in a death grip.

They legged it for the door opposite the guards and kept going. Their shoes slid as they rounded corners, barely staying ahead of their pursuers and the shots that left scorch marks in the wall where they’d been seconds earlier.

Nine ducked as one shot sizzled just above his head. “Stunners!” he yelled back to his counterpart, who was half-dragging the thoroughly exhausted Rose behind him, “They’re trying to capture, not kill!”

Ten nodded grimly, and somehow his legs pumped even faster, catching him and Rose up with Nine.

Nine stopped in his tracks suddenly, and Ten and Rose barely managed to avoid colliding into him. The sliding doors were sealed, blocking the hallway. Dead end. Pulling out his screwdriver, Nine immediately attacked the control panel on the wall, frying the wiring.

“Terrahegan Barricade,” Nine groaned, “Get Rose out, I’ll slow them down.” As he sonic-ed, the doors fizzled slightly.

“No,” Ten snapped, “It’s got to be me, I’m later. Between the two of us….” Nine paused, then nodded.

Rose, who was bent over and leaning on her knees for support, was too exhausted to fully realize what was happening. Ten dropped her hand and took the screwdriver from his younger self.

“Guess I do have a tendency to lose things,” said Ten with a sad smile. “Take care of her, will you?”

“Doc—Ten—Doctor, what are you doing?” Rose demanded, chest still heaving.

Nine took her hand silently as the Terrahegans rounded the corner.

“Go, run!” ordered Ten as he turned to the wiring. The doors opened slightly, but seemed to resist Ten’s tampering.

“Don’t be thick!” Rose yanked her hand from Nine’s, “If you think I’m leaving you—”

The Terrahegans fired, missing her by centimeters. Nine snatched her by the elbow and hurriedly dragged her, struggling, through the narrow opening.

“We can’t leave him!” shrieked Rose, “We can’t—”

“ _Run, you stupid ape, run_!” ordered Nine finally, yanking on her arm. His words, or maybe just the man who was saying them, triggered something deep within her, and she let him take her hand.

They ran. The sliding doors slammed immediately behind them, permanently jammed. Numbly, Rose let Nine lead her through the corridors and down flights of stairs, They dashed past another group of Terrahegans, who immediately gave chase. Finally, Nine spotted a hole in the wall.

“There!” He dove down the hole, and Rose followed after him.

They slid down a chute until finally coming to a squishy, smelly stop. Rose landed with a thump on top of the Doctor. He slid out from under her and stood up, sadly inspecting his muck-covered jacket.

“Alright, lost them,” said Nine, glancing around. “Looks like a rubbish chute.”

Rose said nothing, didn’t even flick some of the grime out of her hair. Her eyes were blankly gazing forward.

“And you’re not even upset about me landing us in garbage!” continued the Doctor cheerily. “No wonder I like you!”

Rose didn’t respond.

He moved closer, and crouched to wipe some of the muck off her forehead. “You alright?”

“I left him,” she said dully. “I just….I just ran away and _left_ you there….”

“Rose—”

Her voice broke. “He’s probably dead and you haven’t even met me yet—”

“Rose!” the Doctor snapped. “Listen, he told you to leave, so it’s not your fault. That was a Terrahegan Barricade—it took a lot of tampering with to even open enough to let us through, so someone had to stay to keep them from closing. He stayed because he’s the later incarnation.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Last time I met up with the Master, he tried to steal the rest of my regenerations. If he tries that again, there’d be a massive paradox if he took mine. Plus, other me’s got less regenerations to give the Master than I do.”

“Oh, so that’s fine, innit,” said Rose harshly, “The Master’s draining you of all your lives right now and we’re just going to leave you there?!”

“Don’t be daft, of course we’re going to get me out.” The Doctor brushed off his jacket, and reached out a hand to help her up. “He’s happy.”

“You mean hyper,” said Rose, corners of her lips turning up slightly. She took his hand, and he pulled her up. She ran a finger through her hair and sniffed. “Stinks a bit down here.”

“That’s the spirit,” he beamed.  “Now, how to get out of a rubbish chute…”

* * *

The Tenth Doctor hated lab tables, especially when he was the one strapped to them. He wriggled a bit at first, but quickly resigned himself to the fact that he wasn’t going anywhere. He tried not to remember the last glimpse he’d had of Rose, screaming for him as he—well, the other him—dragged her away. She’d be fine, the Doctor consoled himself; she was, after all, with himself. He’d taken good care of her during his last incarnation, right? Well, except for throwing a missile at her in Downing Street and not realizing she was dangling from a barrage balloon and leaving her to the mercy of a Dalek and not being fast enough to keep her from being vaporized (alright, _transported_ , but he hadn’t known that) on the Game Station….

The Doctor decided to worry about other things, like the footsteps from the next room that indicated the Master was approaching. He had a nasty feeling he knew what the Master was planning….

“Doctor! It’s been too long,” said the Master cheerily, twiddling his laser screwdriver in his fingers. The Doctor flinched slightly as he aimed it at him, but instead of pain he felt the table he laid upon tilt upwards.

The Master plopped down into a chair next to the lab table beaming as if he’d just been handed a Christmas present.

“How long’s it been then?” demanded the Doctor, “Five months? Six?”

“Two and a half! A little mind control—you know that’s my specialty—a few subliminal messages, and I was elected Grand Vizier Saxon of Terraheg within the month. Now the ones who aren’t falling over themselves to serve me are too scared not to. _And_ they’re losing the war with the Posnians now, isn’t that brilliant?” He slouched in his chair, letting the back of his head rest in his hands. “I _was_ surprised you managed to follow me here, I’ll admit—how _did_ you do it?”

“Nothing you’d understand,” said the Doctor, putting on an air of boredom, “Just whipped up a simple auxiliary micro-antenna, hooked it up to a plasti-dampening quasienhancer, hooked _that_ mess up to the Dextima Module, added a dash of filogradient, and then, just for kicks, added a few rubiplasmic circuits. Voila! Master’s location.”

The Master leaned forward accusingly. “You made that up.”

“Course I did. A little technobabble is good for the soul, don’t you think?”

The Master sighed. “Straight to business then. Slaves!” he called. Nothing happened for a moment. “Oh, these Ardonians, so technologically advanced for such primitive minds. If they didn’t make such _excellent_ weapons….Ah, here they are!” Several blank-faced Terrahegans entered, wheeling in a very large machine.

The Doctor shivered as his suspicions were confirmed. Not good. Not good at _all_.

“Now the question is, Doctor,” said the Master as he unwrapped several cords from the machine and attached the pads on the ends to the back of the Doctor’s hands, “Are you older or younger than the one that ran off with— _Rose_ , wasn’t it?”

The Doctor did not answer, trying to repress all panic as the Master stuck some of the pads to his temples. He could feel the power emanating through the cords, and the machine had not even been turned on.

“I suppose you’re the younger one,” drawled the Master as he undid the top buttons on the Doctor’s shirt, “So I can’t get more information out of you?”

The Doctor laughed dryly. “Oh, no, you’ve got it backwards. I’m older.” A plan formed in his mind. “In fact, I’m old _est_. Thirteenth Doctor, that’s me.”

The Master froze halfway through placing a pad over the Doctor’s right heart.

“So your brilliant plan to nick the rest of my regenerations isn’t going to work. Haven’t got any! I’m on my last!” The Doctor said smugly.

The Master finished his right heart and pressed another pad to his left. “I don’t believe you. You’re lying.”

“Do you really want to test that?” the Doctor went on, as the Master slid a hand down his shirt to attach a cord to his stomach. “Your machine’s—pardon the technical term—a piece of _junk_. That thing looks like it’s built out of spare bits of Ardonian machinery, and I bet it’s only got one charge—am I right?”

The Master didn’t answer the question. “You’re one to talk about spare parts. Using an Earth toaster as a heat-spatial converter on your TARDIS—inspired.”

The Doctor’s eyes narrowed. “What have you—”

“Done to your ship?” the Master grinned widely and rubbed his hands together. “Nothing much. Because you see, I can rig up a fairly impressive paradox machine with one TARDIS—but two? Oh, it’s going to be beautiful…..”

The Doctor’s look of horror made the Master grin even wider.


	5. Chapter 5

Inside the rubbish chute, the Ninth Doctor and Rose inspected their new accommodations for a way out.

“Do you suppose he’s alright?” asked Rose, trying not to focus on the drying muck all over her. “The other you? Him, you…”

“‘S alright. English just isn’t up to the task of time traveling pronouns.” Nine carefully tested a section of the wall, knocking gently and concentrating on the echo. “And yeah, I think he’s fine. He is me, after all, so he can’t be a total dolt.”

“Could you tell? If something was wrong, I mean.”

“No.”

“But you’re the same person!” Rose blurted, “Don’t you have, you know, the same mind? Can’t you just like, think and he’ll hear you or sommat like that?”

“No, I cannot just—” Nine paused. “Oh. Fantastic idea, actually. I’ve done it before, but it might be a bit tricky over this great a distance. Worth a try, though.”

“What?”

“Keep a lookout, Rose. I’m going to be completely unresponsive and just a bit comatose over the next couple minutes.”

“What?!”

Nine sat down, leaned his back against the wall, closed his eyes, and concentrated. “Contact.”

* * *

The Tenth Doctor lay deathly still, strapped to the lab table and feeling as if every body part weighed several tons. The machine, lying patiently in the corner, no longer threatened him, but he had other problems to deal with. He couldn’t remember how long it had been since the Master had slipped the needle into his skin and gone through to the room next door to do….something, something very bad to his TARDIS. He really ought to try and stop that. He concentrated harder, trying to sort the jumbled and disconnected bits of his mind. He needed a plan. Step 1, step 1. What was it?

Escape! That was it, he was certain. Escape and find Rose. The Master didn’t have her, right? He wouldn’t have let that happen…

A force, oddly familiar and yet very faint, brushed on his thoughts. Contact? He thought dimly. It’d been awhile since he’d done that. He let it in.

_Ha, it worked! Hold on, what’s this? Neuron  decelerator? And you’ve been fighting it how long? Impressive. Very impressive. Let’s see if I can help a bit…._

A small push nudged at the chemical fog clouding his mind. For so long he’d been blind, and now he could see! No, better than that, he could _think_! Thoughts and ideas flew through his mind at rapid speed as neurons resumed firing and he felt _alive_ again.

_Right, not much time, where were we?...._

* * *

Rose sat leaning against the wall of the rubbish chute with the Ninth Doctor’s head in her lap and a scowl on her face. Why did he do this sort of thing to her? Both of him?! With no explanation whatsoever!

Her fuming was interrupted by a sudden clanking in the rubbish chute as the room suddenly became increasingly shorter.

“Doctor?” Rose nudged him frantically. “Collapsing tunnel chute, ceiling coming down. Wake up, Doctor!”

He remained utterly comatose, with not even a twitch. Guess it was up to her then.

Reaching under his arms for a better grip, Rose dragged the Doctor into the corner and leaned him against the wall again while she prodded the wall with her fingers. What she was looking for she didn’t really know. A seam in the wall maybe? Her fingernail caught on a chunk of the wall. Could that be a weak spot?

She stuck a hand into the Doctor’s jacket pocket and fumbled for the sonic screwdriver before remembering that Ten had lost his when they were arrested and had used Nine’s to let them escape. She glanced up. The ceiling was a mere two metres above her head and falling fast.

She clawed her fingernails at the indentation in the wall, which expanded to a full-fledged dent. She fancied she could feel that chunk of the wall moving in slightly.

The ceiling pressed down on her head, and she hurriedly crouched next to the Doctor and shook him again. Her eyes rapidly flitting between the ceiling and his motionless form as she tried to keep the hysteria from her voice. “Doctor, wake up, please, you’ve got to wake up. Help me!”

The Doctor’s blue eyes flashed open as he sprung to life, taking in the rapidly descending ceiling and scraping at the wall with his fingers in an instant.

“Is it the way out?” Rose cried, looking over his shoulder as he succeeded in poking a hole through the wall.

“Even better!” he beamed as he forced the hole wider, revealing a tangle of wires. “You’ve found the control system!” In one fluid motion he yanked a wire out, and the ceiling jolted to a halt.

“And now…” he muttered, fingering the remaining wires. “That one.” He wrenched another wire from the control system, and a panel at the opposite side of the rubbish chute shot open, letting brown muck spill into the hallway.

“And here I thought the Master had never seen Star Wars!” the Doctor laughed. “Come on then!” He started for the opening, but Rose didn’t follow.

“You were unconscious,” Rose accused, arms folded.

“Telepathic conference,” the Doctor explained, “Couldn’t sustain a connection very well—his whole mind’s running in slow mode right now—but I know where he is at least.”

“So what happened? Is he alright?” Rose inquired, trudging through the slime to follow after him.

The Doctor poked his head out to confirm the coast was clear and stepped into the hallway, brushing his jacket off. “I was right, the Master was after our regenerations. He told him he was on our last one.”

“Is he?” Rose frowned.

“No,” he scoffed. “But anyway, he’s safe for the moment. Trouble is, now the Master’s looking for me.”

An alarm suddenly shrieked.

“…And he found me.”

“Run?” suggested Rose.

“Run,” he affirmed. Grabbing her hand, he pulled her into a sprint down the hallway. Mere seconds passed before the sounds of boots thumping on the cool linoleum floor followed after them. Rose dared not turn to look.

Just in front of them, a door slid open. “In here!”

Nine dashed towards the door, dragging Rose behind him.

“Quickly!” urged the woman inside, beckoning them through the door. She shut it behind them as they entered, chests heaving. She was a small woman, quiet-looking, with a loose bun of brown hair. Her keen eyes quickly darted between them, taking in the two escapees standing with her in what appeared to be a cupboard filled with files of paperwork.

“Thanks,” Nine said gratefully. “I’m the Doctor, this is Rose. Who are you?”

“I’m…” the woman hesitated, lips trembling. “He’s not…he’s not in your head?”

“No,” replied the Doctor warily, “Is he in yours?”

“No, but—always in my head, the drumming…” she whimpered.

Rose moved next to her and rubbed her shoulder comfortingly. “It’s alright,” she soothed, “You can tell us. Who are you?”

The woman swallowed, regaining some composure. “I’m Dr. Kasna Jooli. I’m an analyst here at First Terraheg Bunker, developing stratagems against the Posnians. Or I was.” She choked back a sob. “And then _he_ came, this Saxon bloke, and I said—I said he came from nowhere and how did we know he wasn’t a spy for Posnia? But no one listened, and now they’re all _brainwashed_ or something.”

“He’s got subliminal messages on all your air waves,” the Doctor explained. “Did you say your name was Jooli?”

She nodded.

“Ha! Hello!” Nine shook her hand vigorously, grinning. He stopped when Rose glared at him. “Alright, sorry. Go on.”

 “They won’t listen to me anymore,” Kasna continued desperately. “I’ve been hiding…and I saw you, and you weren’t like them, all blank and staring.”

The Doctor peered at her curiously. “You were able to resist the hypnotism somehow? You really are brilliant!”

Kasna shook her head sadly. “Used to, maybe. Now I’m afraid I’m rather a mess. It’s those drums…”

“You’ve been alone this entire two and a half months, haven’t you?” the Doctor realized, “Waiting alone, no one to talk to, hiding from your own people.”

“I’d have gone mad,” Rose assured her, “You’ve been doing splendidly.”

Kasna nodded in thanks and pressed on determinedly. “This is some ploy of the Posnians, I know it! He’s here to destroy us, building weapons with our own materials. Ever since that Saxon infiltrator came to power, I’ve been monitoring him, trying to piece together a strategy to destroy his machine.”

“What machine?” asked the Doctor sharply.

“There’s two he’s been working on,” explained Kasna, “One of them is built from the tubing of an electrorectifier and some of the gears from a hover vehicle, amongst other things. But I can’t figure out what it does.”

“I know,” the Doctor said grimly, “Steals regenerations.”

Kasna gave him a blank stare.

“Kills certain kinds of people,” explained Rose helpfully.

Kasna shook her head in bemusement and continued, “The other one took him a lot longer. There’s very little in the base he hasn’t used for it, and it sort of…glows. It’s about two greshels high, in this blue box.”

The Doctor flinched. “Paradox machine.”

“And I don’t know where he got it,” said Kasna, “But he got _another_ blue box today, and he’s spent most of the day with it—”

“Oh, no,” groaned the Doctor. “A paradox machine with two TARDISes? That’s enough to…to…”

“Do something very bad?” guessed Rose.

“Wipe a Time Lord from existence,” he finished.

“Wipe a what?” questioned Kasna.

“Means it kills people before they’re born, so to speak,” explained the Doctor, folding his arms as he thought hard.

"But you said the Master wasn't going to use it on him, right?" Rose bit her lip.

" _Might_ not," Nine replied, brow furrowed.

" 'Him?' Who else is here with you?" asked Kasna.

"Our friend," Nine supplied. "We'll need to get him out first before we can take apart the paradox machine. It's a paradox if the Master kills me, not if he kills him."

"You got a plan then?" Rose raised an eyebrow.

"Of course I have a plan!" said Nine defensively. "When don't I? What d’ya think I am, an ape?"


	6. Chapter 6

The Tenth Doctor, still strapped to a table, listened dully to the mechanical tinkering coming from the next room as he fought off the drug-induced sleepiness. If he could just worm a hand free…

The Master returned from the next room, beaming from ear to ear. "It's done!" he said giddily.

"What's done?" asked Ten sluggishly, opening his eyes.

"Oh, sorry, forgot, neuron decelerator!" He yanked the IV drip from the Doctor's arm, eliciting a pained yell.

"Back up to speed! Now, thought you might like to see _this_!" he said cheerily, wheeling the table the Doctor lay on through the door to the next room. "You're the only half-wit on the whole planet who might remotely appreciate it, after all."

The Doctor, fully awake now, squirmed in the restraints. Yep, still wouldn’t budge. "Look, if the Terrahegans don’t win this war, the entire Hubron system will end up in an even bigger war, not to mention terraforming technology will never be invented! Do you have _any idea_ what that will do—"

The door swung open, and the Doctor broke off. Even his expansive vocabulary failed him.

His TARDIS—both of them—were enveloped in wires, stretching between them from console through open doors to console in a grotesque game of cat’s cradle. An eerie red glow emanated from within both of them, and he could hear a mechanical groaning echoing through their halls. Tools and remnants of various devices lay scattered around the machine.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” The Master nearly squealed in excitement. “Now we just need a paradox to test it out.”

“But the timeline—” The Doctor started.

“The timelines,” he yanked the Doctor’s head up by the hair, “Don’t matter anymore. I’m going to rewrite them! No more Hubron reign, no Great and Bountiful Human Empire—I can keep the Telectofon galaxy from even being inhabited!” He slammed the Doctor’s head into the table, making the captured Time Lord groan. The Master leaned in closer, his voice barely a murmur. “Because if they’re gone, time is mine, do you understand? _Time is mine_.”

A large screen on the far wall flashed “INCOMING CALL.”

“Accept call.” commanded the Master.

Dr. Kasna's face flashed onto the screen.

"Master," she monotoned. "The escaped man has been captured."

The Master's eyes flitted behind her, where a leather-jacketed man lay slumped on the floor, unconscious.

He smirked. "And what happened to the blonde?"

Kasna's eyes flickered. "She's dead."

"Excellent! Have him brought in, then.” He spun on his heels to grin at Ten, whose wide eyes were still staring at the now-blank screen. “Aw, did you wose anowwer wittle human?” He mocked.

Ten’s entire body had gone stiff, still staring at the screen wordlessly.

“Aren’t you going to answer?” the Master pouted, leaning over Ten’s table.

The door slid open, allowing Kasna and a helmeted guard dragging Nine inside.

“Ha!” The Master scooted hurriedly over to the newcomers. “This should be fun—wonder what happens to you if I kill him?” he called over his shoulder to Ten. “The universe’ll likely hold together, with this machine—not sure about you. Won’t that be _fascinating_?”

But Ten was no longer listening to the Master. His hearts were thudding harder in his chest as his eyes focused on the guard. The guard who was the exact height of Rose Tyler.

“Put him over there,” ordered the Master, pointing to another table in the room behind him. The guard started to drag Nine over to the other table, and the Master whirled to grin at Ten, rubbing his hands together gleefully. “You got to admit, this is brilliant! Revenge best served hot! Revenge for Gallifrey, revenge for the Time Lords—” he paused, considering. “Oh, forget it. This is all for me.”

He turned to reach for the regeneration drainer, only to meet the heavy spanner Kasna swung into his head. The smug grin dropped off his face as his body likewise collapsed to the floor.

“Always the women,” quipped Nine cheerfully as he and an unhelmeted Rose emerged from the next room. “Oh, and look what I found in there!” He twirled the sonic screwdriver in his fingers.

“Which one?” asked Ten, wriggling impatiently.

Wearing a smug grin, Nine tossed it up into the air and caught it. “Looks like yours, but as you lost mine, I’ll be keeping it, thanks.”

“When you boys are finished,” Rose rolled her eyes pointedly.

“Right.” Nine aimed the screwdriver at Ten’s restraints. “How are you, then?”

“Just dandy!” Ten beamed. “Bit of a headache, fourth-worst I can remember, but ooh, looks like the Master’s going to have worse when he wakes up!” He noticed an unfamiliar figure. “Who are you, by the way?”

“Dr. Kasna Jooli,” answered the analyst, dropping the spanner.

“Analyst for the Terrahegans,” supplied Nine.

Ten’s eyes widened, “Oh, you mean—?”

Nine smirked and cut him off. “And now look who’s trying to give out spoilers?”

As the last restraint came undone, Ten sprung from the table. “Good morning, Rose Tyler! Afternoon? Evening? Christmas?” He frowned. “Synapses went a bit loopy for a moment. I’ve no idea what time it is. Bleh.” His face screwed up in disgust.

“Feels like we’ve been here hours,” shrugged Rose, beaming and giving him a hug.

“What has that arse done with our ship?” said Nine suddenly, striding over to examine the TARDISes in dismay.

“Paradox machine,” explained Ten, walking over with the others to join him. “And the fact that he used the same TARDIS twice only complicates matters.”

“You never explained—what exactly does this thing do?” asked Rose, eyebrows raised in alarm.

“Say the Master changes a fixed point in time, like this war,” explained Nine.

“Rips a hole in time, shreds it to pieces, bad stuff all around,” continued Ten, slashing his hand through the air. “The paradox machine acts like a big Band-Aid,” he mimed sealing the imaginary crack in the air, “Keeping time together for awhile. Indefinitely, if the machine never wears down.”

“But they’re immensely complicated and wear down easily,” Nine finished. “Very risky. And it hurts the TARDIS.” He fingered the sonic screwdriver in his hand and turned to his counterpart. “We’ll need to be careful. Two of the same TARDIS in the same room—not to mention two of the same Time Lord—that’s a paradox in itself.”

“Right, better get started!” Ten reached a hand out expectantly. “Now if you’ll just—”

“No.” Nine crossed his arms, sonic screwdriver clutched firmly in his fist.

Ten heaved a dramatic sigh, then scooped up a handful of tools from the pile amassed next to his TARDIS, “Fine then. Rose, want to help me?”

“Sure,” she answered, casting a mischievous glance back at a suddenly very put-out Nine as she followed Ten into the older TARDIS.

Kasna looked between both Doctors in confusion. “What?”

“Here, you can help me.” Nine beckoned towards his TARDIS.

Kasna took one step inside. Her jaw dropped. “It’s—”

“— A mess!” declared Nine in disgust, stepping gingerly around a thick strand of wire strung to the console. “Suppose we better get started then.”

* * *

“—and that’s about it,” Rose finished as she handed a spanner to Ten, who lay half-buried underneath the console.

“You got to run from guards _and_ escape a shrinking rubbish chute?” Ten whined. “All I got to do was sit there.” He sighed. “I’m glad you’re alright.”

“Me too. And you. Both of you,” Rose said softly.

Ten emerged from underneath the console, tossed the spanner to the floor, and inspected the metal bolts screwed in all around the console. “Now what to do about this? I suppose I’d need to twist it out somehow—”

“Here you are,” Rose said with a chuckle, handing him a screwdriver.

Ten stared at the tool in horror. “It’s a _screwdriver_!”

“So? You’ve already used spanners and hammers, what’s wrong with the screwdriver?”

“Rose, I haven’t used an actual non-sonic screwdriver since—since—” He counted in a mutter on his fingers before giving up and announcing, “Since _ages_ ago!”

“Are you telling me you’ve never used a proper screwdriver?” Rose raised an eyebrow.

With a heaving sigh, Ten accepted the primitive tool.

“You can do it,” Rose rolled her eyes.

“Oi, no need for eye-rolling! I’m defusing a bomb here, you realize that?”

She very nearly yawned. “You’ve defused bombs in your sleep. I’ve bigger things to worry about.”

“Such as?”

“Is Kasna famous?” Her lips quirked. “Only you and—other you—you both act funny whenever her name comes up.”

“Kasna Jooli, the inventor of terraforming technology!” Ten explained enthusiastically, bouncing slightly as he circled the console and unscrewed the bolts. “Makes inhabitable planets habitable! Imagine it, Rose, planets of dusty rock transformed into lush jungles! Where would the universe be without terraforming? No Trebelis IV, no A’lo’kineesh…no Disneyland on Mars!”

“What, Disneyland? Oh, you’re having me on, aren’t you?”

Ten gasped in mock dismay. “Me? Never!” He continued his bouncing around the console. “29th century, fifty years after Mars is first terraformed, a small world becomes even smaller.” He waved a hand dismissively. “Anyway, the terraforming technology’s why this war’s a fixed point in time. The whole planet’s overcrowded, bursting at the seams with people. So, Terraheg and Posnia, the two most powerful countries, they start going at each other over what land’s available. It goes on for a couple years before a simple Terrahegan analyst, Kasna Jooli, invents terraforming technology. Suddenly any planet can be your new home sweet home! Terraheg and Posnia make peace, a united Ardonia sets up colonies—room to grow! Then the Grataxi catch on. And then the humans, and there’s no stopping you lot! Millions— _billions_ of civilizations owe their existence to one scientist sick of war. Isn’t that brilliant?”

He finished unscrewing the last bolt and yanked it out. “There we are! Think I’m done here.”

“What about this one?” Rose ran a finger along a thick cord that led straight from the computer terminal in the console out through the door.

“Ah.” Ten frowned. “That one locks the time rotors together. Needs a code. I could hack it of course, but…”

“But?”

He winced. “But if I try the entire thing will implode on itself, possibly bringing all of reality with it.”

“OK, so let’s not do that, yeah?” she bit her lip. “Hold on, didn’t we see a giant computer somewhere? Would that have a code?”

“Where we left the heating vent!” the Doctor grinned. “Molto bene!”

* * *

The silence in the console room was only broken by the buzz of the sonic screwdriver as the Ninth Doctor fiddled and spliced various components under and around the console. Kasna sat on the captain’s chair, feeling quite useless and yet terribly fascinated. To have such space in such a small box…Still, the silence was proving a bit boring, and impatience won out.

"If this thing is as devastating as you say it is, can't we just use this weapon on the Posnians instead of destroying it?"  
  
Nine didn’t even look from what he was doing. "No.”

“Well, why not?” demanded Kasna. “They’re trying to take the land that’s belonged to us for centuries!”

Nine paused in his work to glance up at her. “You know, the Posnians are exactly like you. Too many crammed into too small a space, stir-crazy. All they want is same as you—a decent spit of habitable land. Not to mention that yes, this land was your people’s for centuries—after you lot kicked them off it."  
  
Kasna sat up straighter. "This isn't a weapon, is it? It's something else."  
  
"Knew you were brilliant," Nine said absent-mindedly as he resumed sonic-ing. "No, it's not. It's my space ship."  
  
"Space ship?"  
  
Nine scooted from underneath the console, stood, and dusted himself off. "There are worlds out there, Kasna. All over the universe, planets circling distant suns. But you don't even need to go that far—there's several planets right in your own backyard, so to speak. Plenty of space for everyone."  
  
"We've sent out probes," Kasna said dully, shoulders slumping. "They're not habitable. This is the only habitable planet for three galaxies."  
  
Nine raised an eyebrow. "If only there was a way to make inhabitable planets habitable."

Kasna’s lips puckered in an ‘oh.’ Her eyes were distant, already light-years away.  
  
Suddenly, Ten poked his head inside the console room. "You're not done yet?"  
  
"If you haven't noticed,” Nine said tersely,  wrenching another disabled wire out of the console, “ _I've_ got to deal with two and a half months’ worth of tampering. You only had to deal with a day's worth. And _I'm_ almost done."  
  
”I gave you the screwdriver, didn’t I?” Ten gazed around the console room fondly, hands in his pockets. "She does sound much better. Anyway, have you noticed that the time rotors are locked together? Needs a code to open. I was thinking—”  
  
"That giant computer in the room with the sensors?"  
  
Ten gave an exaggerated sigh. "Whatever happened to respect for your elders?" he whined. "Anyway, I need the—”

Nine grudgingly hurled the sonic screwdriver straight at Ten’s head, but to his disappointment Ten caught it easily.

“Molto bene!” said Ten cheerily, “Rose and I are off to get the code then!"  
  
"Great. I’ll finish up here.” Ten waved a dismissive hand, and Nine yelled at his retreating back, “Don’t lose that thing, will you?"  
  
But Ten was already off.

With the help of a spanners and some tired fingers (he was _not_ going to touch the actual screwdriver), Nine finished detaching the last of the paradox machine components and stood, stretching the kinks out of his shoulders. Now all he needed was the code from his future self to separate the two TARDISes, and off he could go back to exploring the universe…alone.

“You’re done?” Kasna questioned uncertainly.

Nine patted the wire linking the time rotors. “Yeah. Just this one left.”

Kasna frowned slightly. “So your ship is fixed now? You’re off to the stars?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I—” She paused and took a deep breath before continuing, “Can I come with you?”

His hearts leapt in his chest at the thought of a new friend, a new companion—but no. History needed her.

“One trip, maybe,” he allowed, folding his arms across his chest sternly. “But I don’t think you really want to see the stars.”

Kasna’s chin jutted out defiantly. “Then what do I want?”

Nine’s eyes bored into her. “You want out of the war.”

She flinched, then glowered at him. “I’m so sick of coming up with new strategies for death and destruction. Destroying the Posnians, destroying the Master’s machines. I want to _create_ something.”

He clapped his hands together and pointed at her. “That’s it! _That’s_ the genius Kasna Jooli!”

She smiled and strode towards the door. “That thing you said, about making planets habitable. I think I might have a theory. I’ll start drafting some blueprints—”

But as she stepped from the TARDIS doors, she let out a piercing scream and fell to the floor, slight wisps of smoke emerging from a clean hole in her chest.

“No!” cried Nine, rushing to his fallen friend. He hurriedly knelt next to her body and pressed two fingers to her neck. Dismayed at the absence of a pulse underneath his fingertips, he lifted his face up in time to see the laser screwdriver centimetres away from his nose.

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

“Oh, you’ve _got_ to be having me on this time.” Rose stifled her laughter as she and the Tenth Doctor made their way towards the computer room.

“No, really!” Ten continued, “There I was, armed with nothing but my scarf and a carton of orange juice…Ah, here we are!”

He pushed the button, and the doors slid open.

“No guards?” wondered Rose as they moved towards the computer.

“Nah,” Ten waved a hand dismissively. “Master can’t give them any commands at the moment.” He sonicked the computer to get to a red screen, then stretched his arms and cracked his knuckles before letting his fingers fly over the keys. Colors, shapes, and words flashed on the screen too quickly for Rose to process.

“So, scarf and orange juice?” she prodded.

“Convinced them the juice was the Fountain of Youth and—” Suddenly, he doubled over, clutching his stomach with a cry of pain.

“Doctor!” Smile vanishing, Rose caught him as he fell. “Doctor, what’s happening?”

“Not good!” he gasped, face tightened in pain. “Time’s—” He clenched his eyes shut. “Time’s rewriting….The paradox machine, it’s not all the way dismantled…” He swallowed, opened his eyes, and extracted himself from Rose’s arms. Grimacing, he pushed himself back to the computer and scrolled through it in a frenzy, sonicking with one hand and typing with the other. “Something must have happened to my previous self—the paradox machine’s only half-functioning, it won’t be long before time catches up with us—”

“You sound like my friends,” commented Rose absent-mindedly, watching the screen over his shoulder. “Specially the Doctor. He’s always going on about timelines and that.”

“What did you say?” the Doctor glanced up from the screen distractedly. “What friends?”

“The Doctor and Jack,” said Rose, nose wrinkling in confusion. “Haven’t I introduced you? I really should—”

“Oh, no, nonononono _no_!” Ten’s eyes widened. “If the timelines are rewriting, then you, your memory, it’s—” He grabbed Rose by the shoulders. “Rose, who am I?”

“You’re…” She frowned, brows pushed together in concentration. “I don’t know.” Her voice grew tense as it raised in pitch. “You—have you been messing with my head? I don’t remember—where’s the Doctor? And Jack? What have you done to them?!”

“They’re…busy,” Ten fumbled wildly. He turned back to the computer, furiously sonicking. “Jack’s busy, the Doctor—uh—” He let out a whoop of triumph. “There we are, there’s the code!” He took Rose’s hand and started back towards the paradox machine.

Rose yanked her hand out of his. “Hold on, I’m not going _anywhere_ until you’ve told me who you are!”

“I’m—I’m a friend,” Ten’s voice faltered for a moment. Rose was plainly terrified, and with the _wrongness_ coursing through his entire being it was taking all he had just to keep himself together. “Friend of the Doctor’s. He’s in trouble.”

“The Doctor’s in trouble?” Rose’s eyes narrowed, “What sort of trouble?”

The Doctor groaned as another wave of pain rolled over him. They didn’t have time for this. “Bad. The bad kind. Catastrophic. He said you could trust me. You can trust me as much as—” A flash of inspiration struck him. “You can trust me as much as you trusted Jack in the Blitz.” There, that’d do it. She’d trusted Jack even after he’d admitted to being a lying conman. Surely that would —

“Who’s Jack then?” asked Rose, crossing her arms.

Rose was forgetting more, her memory loss accelerating. The Doctor clutched at his head as he felt his own past fraying and snapping. How long until time caught up with him? How long before he was erased completely? And Rose—her memories were the first to go, but she wouldn’t be here either if something happened to Nine—she would have died in that basement —

“He said you could trust me,” he said through gritted teeth, “As much as you trusted him when he took your hand and told you to run.”

Rose’s eyes softened. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” he lied, “We just need to _run_!” Rose didn’t take his hand, but she was following him at least, down the corridor and back towards the paradox machine.

“What do we need to do? What’d the Doctor say to do?” asked Rose frantically as they ran.

“We’ve got to shut off the time rotor connector!” he yelled, pumping his legs even faster to distract him from the horrible throbbing in his head. His entire body was on fire, as if he were regenerating— _un_ regenerating —

His knees gave way and he crumpled to the floor, curling up in a foetal position and screaming.

“What’s happening?!” shrieked Rose, kneeling next to him on the floor, “What’s wrong?”

“I’m dying—he’s dying, the Doctor, he’s—dying,” Ten gasped. “Oh my head—” His hands gripped his temples as another moan escaped his throat. Time had changed, and he was no longer a part of it. And now time was coming to claim him from existence.

“What do I do!?” Rose shook his shoulders, desperately grasping for answers.

The Doctor struggled to focus his vision enough to see Rose hovering over him, tears in her panicked eyes. Drawing on what was left of his strength, he pulled himself together for just a few more moments.

“Rose, listen….I’m not going to make it. You need—” _His every cell was screaming like it had when he’d regenerated, but they weren’t healing themselves and it hurt ithurtithurtithurt…._ “You need to keep running. Find the TARDIS….paradox machine, turn it off….”

“How do I do that?” Rose asked wildly, sensing his pain and taking his hand to calm him as well as herself.

He closed his eyes, struggling to breathe. He squeezed her hand involuntarily as he cried out again. “Break the connection…code…7466…” His body spasmed violently for a moment, and he gripped her hand so tightly a tiny part of his brain not thinking about the pain worried that he’d broken her fingers.

“7466,” Rose whispered, tears streaming freely down her face. She had no idea who this man was, but something in her own mind was screaming with him, _for_ him.

The Doctor opened his eyes, still gasping with pain. He looked up into her eyes and managed to choke out, “Rose, before I go, you…” He broke off as his body spasmed violently again. “Rose, you were brilliant, and I….”

A golden glow emanated from his entire body. Eyes wide, the Doctor forced himself to let go of Rose’s hand and tried desperately to scoot himself away from her. His entire body disintegrated as the golden glow consumed him. “GO, ROSE, RUN!” he screamed, his eyes bulging with terror, and then….

He was gone. The golden glow vanished, and not a trace of him was left. Not even a scorch mark on the floor where he’d burned, as if he’d never existed at all.

 


	8. Chapter 8

Rose sat frozen for a moment, staring in shock at the spot where the man—the stranger that had made her heart break when he’d screamed—had been only moments before.

And then she was running, legs pumping as her hair flew behind her. The Doctor was in danger, the man had said. The Doctor needed her, and though she hadn’t known the Doctor for very long she needed to help him….

She tossed the doors at the end of the corridor open, and saw the blue box—TARDIS, she reminded herself, although she couldn’t remember what it stood for—across the room. Two of them, both glowing an eerie red from within.

Beside them was the Doctor, strapped to a lab table with another man looming over him. Like the man Rose had just left, the Doctor radiated with a brilliant golden light. His screams sounded almost like a duet, and for a moment Rose wondered if the man next to him was screaming too. But as she moved closer, she saw that the standing man’s mouth was not open in a scream, but grinning in blissful delight. His eyes were closed, as if savoring the sweetest symphony in the universe.

Paradox machine forgotten, Rose tackled him to the ground. “Stop it! Stop hurting him!” she shrieked, pounding her fists into every bit of the man she could reach.

He kicked her in the gut, and she rolled off him, gasping.

“Will you just bugger off?” cried the Master exasperatedly, massaging his bruised jaw. “Can’t you see I’m _busy_?!”

He extracted a small silver tube from his pocket and pointed at Rose. Her eyes widened, her brain not quite knowing what it was but somehow processing that it meant death —

She rolled, more on instinct than anything else, as the Master fired the laser screwdriver. In one great effort, she leaped to her feet and dove towards the closest TARDIS.

She slammed the door of the police box shut behind her and leaned heavily on the console, chest heaving, somehow hearing the zing of the laser screwdriver slamming into the other side of the door. “ _The forces of Genghis Khan couldn’t get through that door—and believe me, they’ve tried_.” Who had spoken those words? She couldn’t remember. All she knew was that this definitely wasn’t her mum’s flat or Mickey’s and it wasn’t Hendricks. This was just some horrible, horrible nightmare that she’d tell Mickey about whenever she woke up and he’d laugh at her and tell her she’d had too much to drink…

Her knees suddenly buckled underneath her. Her head was spinning, and she thought she could feel tendons snapping, skin shredding, every fibre of her being ripping like pages torn from a book. Her eyes landed on the keypad attached to the centre console, and she vaguely recalled a man’s voice telling her some numbers. Half-crawling, half-stumbling, she moved closer to the console, fingers fumbling until they found the keys…7…4…6…6…

A clanging filled the console room, and for a moment Rose feared she’d misheard the strange man, that she’d somehow made things worse…Her head throbbed, pulsing as if trapped animals were trying to push themselves out….

Anxious to escape the bells, Rose opened the door to the police box and tumbled out onto the floor in a heap.

The Master knelt on the floor nearby, hands clutching at his temples. “What have you done?” he hollered like a toddler denied a toy. “What have you—NO!”

The entire world spun violently. Booming and crashing reverberated in an ear-splitting eruption of sound, and blurred streaks of her surroundings zoomed past her. Rose shut her eyes and covered her head as if that would protect her from the shower of memories bursting in her mind. Living dummies and the offer of a lifetime….her father, found and lost again….a captain in the Blitz…Daleks and the Doctor changing…werewolves and Sarah Jane and France and Mickey and….

The world finally halted, and Rose slowly rose to her knees, trying not to retch. The Doctor—Nine, she reminded herself—lay utterly motionless on the machine’s table, no longer glowing.

The Master was already up and at the machine, jamming at buttons along its side in agitation. “Oh, no, NO NO _NO_!” He hit the machine repeatedly, frustrated.

Rose let out a sigh of relief, and the Master whirled to face her. “You stupid, stupid girl!” he roared, features twisted in livid rage. “It won’t work, none of it!” He pointed the laser screwdriver at her, and she tensed, waiting for a fatal shock —

The screwdriver fizzled in the Master’s hand. “What? What?!” he sputtered. He and Rose both turned to the door.

The Tenth Doctor stood in the doorway, completely restored, from his Converse to his billowing overcoat to the tips of his crazy hair. His hand held the sonic screwdriver pointed threateningly at the Master.

“You _broke_ my screwdriver!” the Master accused.

“You wiped me from all of existence,” said Ten grimly, eyes blazing. “Seemed a fair trade.”

Nine let out a groan, slowly opening his eyes. Rose rushed towards him and started yanking at the restraints.

“So what now?” scoffed the Master, eyes not moving from Ten. “Are you going to kill me?”

Ten took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “No.”

“Coward,” the Master yelled, face screwing up in fury as he took a step forward. “COWARD!”

“Always,” said Ten quietly. Nine nodded in agreement as Rose helped him off the table.

“I hear Volag-Noc is nice this time of year,” the younger Doctor said cheerfully. “You thinking Volag-Noc?”

“Sounds perfect,” agreed Ten. “Don’t know why neither of me figured it out before.” Both Doctors slowly advanced towards the Master.

“Nu-uh,” declared the Master, “Not happening.” His eyes darted between each of the Doctors surrounding him. “You _can’t_.” In one quick movement, he extracted a silver tube from his pocket and aimed it at the ceiling. Instant realization surged through both Doctors, and they bolted towards the Master to stop him…

Complete darkness fell. Sounds of a scuffle emerged, Rose shrieked, an electronic whistle sounded —

The lights came back on. Both Doctors were centimetres from each other, poised to punch the other in the gut and jaw respectively, Rose had been knocked onto the floor, and the Master was nowhere to be seen.

The Doctors backed away from each other immediately.

“I’m sorry,” Rose murmured from the floor, “I tried to stop him, but he got past me…”

“It’s fine, Rose,” said Nine, noticing a small silver tube on the floor. “My sonic screwdriver,” he pronounced, picking it up and inspecting it. “Used it to turn the lights off. You must have knocked it out of his hands—” A small machine in the corner gushed smoke from its fried circuits. “No!” Nine shouted, running towards the machine, screwdriver in hand.

Ten pocketed his own screwdriver and held out a hand to Rose. “Pardon me for being rude,” he said, glaring at his counterpart’s back.

As soon as she was on her feet, Rose threw her arms around him and buried her face in his shoulder. “You’re okay!”

Ten beamed and lifted her off her feet, spinning her around in a bear hug. “Right as rain, me!”

“But you _burned_ ,” stressed Rose when he put her down. “I forgot you…and you were _gone_ ….”

“Yeah, well,” the Doctor rubbed the back of his neck. “Forcing him,” he pointed a finger at Nine, who was still inspecting the machine in the corner, “To regenerate erased me from space and time. I unregenerated. Not eager to do it again, actually. But then you, Rose Tyler, you _brilliantly_ managed to switch the machine off. Paradox machine goes boom, time fixes itself, events that have happened happened, and ones that weren’t supposed to didn’t! Regeneration drainer goes kaplooie, _he_ doesn’t die, I regain my place in time and space, all’s well that ends well! Plus, time’s reverted! It’s a couple of months before we landed now, the Ardonians won’t remember a thing! Two and a half months completely erased from existence, except for us!”

“And the Master,” Nine added bitterly, attentions no longer focused on the machine. “Emergency temporal shift. He could be anywhere by now.”

Ten scowled. “He got away?”

Nine kicked the machine in disgust and walked back to Ten and Rose. “Yeah.”

“Well, not the end of the world,” remarked Rose brightly, placing a hand on each Doctor’s shoulder. “Means you’re not alone in the universe after all! If he survived, somebody else might have too, yeah?”

“He survived because he abandoned Gallifrey,” said Ten sourly.

Nine didn’t say anything for a moment. “Looks like I’m not alone in the universe anyway.”

The corner of Rose’s lips stretched upwards, and she and hugged him tightly. Nine glanced down at her and then at his counterpart with wide eyes, as if asking what in Rassilon’s name he was supposed to do now. Ten sighed and nodded, and Nine tentatively wrapped his arms around Rose and hugged her back.

The door opened to admit a perfectly healthy and very confused Kasna. “Hey, what’re you doing in here?! This is a private facility! Guards!”

“Oi!” said Ten indignantly, “You _could_ be a tad more respectful, we just saved your planet….Oh, right, sorry, you don’t remember a thing, do you? Oh, well….” Footsteps of the guards—heavy guards—echoed in the hall. “Time to go!”

“Off to Shuria, then,” said Nine with a grin. His voice softened as he turned to Rose. “See you soon.”

She beamed back at him. “It’s been fantastic…or it will be. Bye!” Rose waved as Ten dragged her by the hand towards their TARDIS.

“Where’re you going?!” demanded Kasna as they entered. “You can’t hide in there!”

Both TARDISes shut just as the Terrahegan guards arrived, and vanished mere moments later.

* * *

“So, where to now?” asked the Tenth Doctor excitedly as he bounded around the console room.

“Bed,” Rose answered with a yawn. Her brief nap in the prison cell had been the only sleep she’d gotten in over twenty-four hours.

The Doctor’s shoulders sagged. “You’re missing out on the Waving Mountains of Felspoon for a _nap_?”

“Yeah, I am.” Rose started towards her room, but paused at the doorway leading from the console room. “Do you suppose he’s alright, the other you?”

“Sure, he’s got a meeting with a _fantastic_ blonde in London coming up in—” His eyes widened in horror. “Rose! I just remembered!”

“What?” she said sleepily.

“Shuria! He’s gone to Shuria!” He dashed around the console, jamming his fingers down on the controls.

“So?” she yawned.

“Shurian cities have these creatures, bit like alley cats, called Koul.” The TARDIS lurched slightly as it changed direction.

“Okay….” Rose flicked a strand of hair out of her face warily.

“Except when they’re agitated or feel threatened, they release this memory-wiping substance into the air. Makes the attacker forget why it’s attacking, and then the Koul can eat rather than be eaten.”

“That’s _very_ interesting,” said Rose pointedly, “But I’m going to sleep now, yeah?”

Ten thrust another lever down. “So, I’m about to be attacked by one!”

“What?!” Rose joined him at the console, thoughts of sleeping forgotten.

The TARDIS landed with a deafening crash, but both its passengers were both back on their feet and out the door within seconds.

They’d landed in a rough part of town. Boarded up cement shops lined the empty cobblestone road. Paper litter crunched under their feet as they stepped from the TARDIS. An eerie growl echoed from just around the corner.

They followed the growling around the corner to see Nine facedown in an alleyway, mere metres from his own TARDIS. A purple creature the size of a German shepherd with a mouth that could swallow a watermelon whole loomed over him, drooling teeth centimetres away from the leather jacket….

Ten brandished the sonic screwdriver wildly in the air as it let out a whining high-pitched shriek. The hulking Koul froze in its tracks and advanced towards him, head tilted in menacing curiosity.

“Ah, may need to bump the frequency up a bit….Rose, back away from me very, very….slowly…”

Rose took a step back as the Doctor fiddled with the screwdriver. She could no longer hear its whirring, but the Koul definitely could from the way its ears flattened. Yowling angrily, it turned tail and ran.

They rushed towards the fallen Nine. Rose turned him onto his back as Ten examined his counterpart. “Let’s see…dislocated shoulder…and that is one _nasty_ bruise.” He pointed to Nine’s forehead. “Might be a concussion or…oh!” He laughed. “Or just a tad of amnesia.”

“So that’s why you didn’t remember anything?”

“Guess so.” In one fluid movement, Ten snatched Nine’s arm and yanked it back into its socket with a pop. “There we go, tip-top shape, he’ll be fine! Right as rain!”

Nine let out a soft groan.

“Better bugger off before we screw up the timelines again,” Ten grinned at Rose mischievously. He waggled his eyebrows at her daringly. “Run!”

She followed him, laughing as they turned around the corner and left the past behind.

* * *

The Ninth Doctor woke in a grimy alleyway with the third-worst headache he could ever remember. His blue eyes opened, then shut immediately as the harsh light invaded his retinas. He lay there for a few moments, sprawled spread-eagle on the ground, and pondered the sharp cobblestones pressing into his jacket and the back of his head and how he had gotten here to begin with. He remembered a missing laser spanner and a flash of blonde and something...something important. With a wince, he sat up and opened his eyes. A signal! There had been a very, very important signal! His hands rummaged through his pockets, digging through his collection of various signal-detecting devices until he had found one that was active. He frowned as he inspected the readings. Living plastic? On Earth? What was it doing there?  
  
Well, he'd sort that. The Doctor stood, brushed the dirt off his beloved leather jacket, and turned to see the TARDIS parked directly behind him. He felt his mouth stretch into a wide grin and then laugh at the sight of his magnificent ship, although he couldn’t remember laughing in a long time (far too long) and couldn't place where this sudden burst of optimism had sprung from. He'd come here to replace his laser spanner, he remembered as he entered the TARDIS and shut the door behind him. It could wait. He'd fix his pseudo-home planet one more time before he finally gave in to the despair that, though perhaps not as intense this exact moment, had been eating him for this entire incarnation.  
  
Even the brief unexplained hopefulness dulled as he started the dematerialization sequence and felt the acute emptiness in his head and hearts. _One more time_ , he thought. One last go, one last planet, and then he'd let himself quit and fade away.  
  
The Doctor dematerialized a second too late to hear another TARDIS, the same TARDIS, reverberate with the glorious sound of the universe from just around the corner.


End file.
